Free Night Train to Memphis by Elizabeth Peters Page A

officials. The larger of these mastabas, as they are called, are mazes in themselves. One has thirty-four separate rooms in the superstructure and a tomb shaft below. I had given the guidebook a
hasty perusal the night before and ended up with my head stuffed full of miscellaneous, unrelated facts. Larry made sense of it all.
    ‘You’ve missed your calling,’ I said, as we left the temple complex. ‘You ought to be a guide.’
    He looked absurdly pleased at the silly compliment. We were getting on like a house on fire, I thought complacently. No wonder the poor man fled from women like Suzi; he must be sick of being
relentlessly pursued. All he wanted was to be treated as an intellectual equal, to be admired for his brains instead of his money. I could sympathize with that, though in my case it wasn’t
money that distracted admirers from my intellectual achievements.
    ‘It’s easier to simplify a complex subject when one is an amateur,’ he said modestly. ‘Shall we have a look at one of the mastabas before lunch? As an art historian you
are probably familiar with the reliefs.’
    ‘I remember some Old Kingdom reliefs – they were wonderful, very delicate and detailed – but at this moment I couldn’t tell you which tomb they were from There was one of
a baby hippopotamus . . .’
    ‘You’re probably thinkihg of Mereruka.’ Larry took my arm. ‘But some of the other tombs are equally remarkable. We’ll see which is least crowded.’
    They were all crowded, at least to the eyes of someone like me, whose definition of too many people is three, but Larry said, ‘Never seen so few people here at this time of year. Tourism
is down, people are afraid of terrorists. Nice for us, but unfortunate for the Egyptian economy.’
    I got to see my baby hippopotamus, who was ambling along through the river reeds apparently unaware of the huge crocodile right on his heels (if hippos have heels). He had no cause for alarm;
his devoted mum had grabbed the predator and was in the process of biting it in two.
    The photographs I’d seen hadn’t done the carving justice. To an eye accustomed to Western sculpture the reliefs had a simplicity that verged on naivety, but the more I studied them
the more I realized that that impression was deceptive. The technique was sure and skilled and highly sophisticated; only an ignoramus or an observer who was unable to put aside his unconscious
prejudices would have undervalued them.
    Larry absolutely agreed with me and told me how clever I was to have reached that conclusion. We were having a lovely time when I heard shuffling footsteps and a familiar voice.
‘That’s Feisal, surely,’ I said.
    Larry looked at his watch. ‘He is right on schedule. It’s later than I thought. The time has gone very quickly.’
    He gave me a meaningful look. I probably simpered.
    The first to enter the room was the tall raw-boned man who had been at Larry’s table the night before. He had been following us at a discreet distance all morning, and he continued to be
tactful, staring off into space until Larry murmured, ‘I don’t believe you two have met. Dr Victoria Bliss – Ed Whitbread.’
    ‘’Morning, ma’am.’ Ed whipped off his hat – a broad-brimmed white Stetson – and bowed.
    Despite the stifling heat he was wearing a jacket. I thought I knew why. He was a good three inches taller than Larry, which made him almost six-five. I sincerely hoped that Larry had convinced
him I was a friend. I wouldn’t have wanted him to think of me as an enemy.
    Led by Feisal, the others crowded into the room. Larry faded discreetly away as Suzi headed towards me, shoving bodies out of her way with good-natured impetuosity. ‘I wondered where
you’d got to,’ she said, ‘How’d you do that?’
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘You know.’ She gave me a grin and an elbow in the ribs. It was a surprisingly sharp elbow to belong to a woman so well padded elsewhere. ‘It sure didn’t work when I
tried